Away from the beating: Young boys escape madressas to find sanctuary at Edhi
Edhi shelter homes and orphanages are safe places for children to escape corporal punishment .
"In religious schools, the system of teaching students the Quran with a thick stick still prevails." says Anwer Kazmi, a spokesperson for Edhi home. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI:
Inside a dimly lit room with iron grilles on the window and a padlock on the door, boys with their heads shaved are sitting on a slab playing with a rubber ball. A woman caretaker enters the room and announces that it is time to read the sipara. A nine-year-old boy called Ali Siraj hesitantly joins the children forming a queue to go to the bathroom and clean themselves up.
"I don't get beaten up here but when my former Qari Sahib hit me hard with a stick for not cleaning up the masjid floor properly, I ran away with two other boys," says Siraj, the thin boy with a runny nose, pointing towards two black scars on his left hand.
From the past several months, the number of children running away from madressas to escape corporal punishment and seek shelter at Edhi orphanages and shelter homes have gone up, the officials say. "Around 40 to 50 per cent cases of our runaway children are from madressas," says Anwar Kazmi, a spokesperson of the Edhi Foundation. Most of them are located by the police loitering around on the streets and then are handed over to the shelter home, while the elder ones find their way to the orphanage themselves, he says.
"In religious schools, the system of teaching students the Quran with a thick stick still prevails." Children are also sexually abused but are shy to tell anyone, as parents barely support them so they run away, he adds.
At the Edhi's shelter home for boys in Korangi No. 5, two children from Hijrat Colony and one from Mehmoodabad, who had run away fearing the punishment at madrrssas were handed back to their parents last week. A 10-year-old boy Saleem at a madressa in Sohrab Goth still waits to go back to his home.
Not all runaway children are lucky - and not all of them hail from Karachi. Ali Siraj, who ran away two months ago, belongs to Rajanpur in the Punjab and does not know the exact location of his house.
Arif, the in-charge of the shelter home, says that in case the children are unable to tell their proper address and information about their parents, their pictures are printed in the newspaper and the information is shared with the centres near their hometowns. "If their parents are not found, then we will send them back in the Edhi van in Ramzan to their hometowns."
Child rights activist Nazra Jahan of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child says that abuse at madressas results in negative character building of the child and instills fear and agitation."People are usually tight-lipped on this issue because it is quite sensitive, parents are illiterate and do not bother with the treatment of their children since they are getting, free food, a place to sleep and education."
Jahan says that while most of the corporal punishment in religious schools is restricted to beating them with a stick, in some places children are chained in a locked room. "The bill against corporal punishment has been pending in the Sindh Assembly for the past five years and it covers madrassas."
On the other hand, religious scholars such as Mufti Naeem denied that religious schools were involved in beating students. "It used to happen in the old system but no one does it any more," he said. "In fact, we have strictly ordered our madressas that if they are found to be involved, they would be removed from the board."
Published in The Express Tribune, March 11th, 2014.
Inside a dimly lit room with iron grilles on the window and a padlock on the door, boys with their heads shaved are sitting on a slab playing with a rubber ball. A woman caretaker enters the room and announces that it is time to read the sipara. A nine-year-old boy called Ali Siraj hesitantly joins the children forming a queue to go to the bathroom and clean themselves up.
"I don't get beaten up here but when my former Qari Sahib hit me hard with a stick for not cleaning up the masjid floor properly, I ran away with two other boys," says Siraj, the thin boy with a runny nose, pointing towards two black scars on his left hand.
From the past several months, the number of children running away from madressas to escape corporal punishment and seek shelter at Edhi orphanages and shelter homes have gone up, the officials say. "Around 40 to 50 per cent cases of our runaway children are from madressas," says Anwar Kazmi, a spokesperson of the Edhi Foundation. Most of them are located by the police loitering around on the streets and then are handed over to the shelter home, while the elder ones find their way to the orphanage themselves, he says.
"In religious schools, the system of teaching students the Quran with a thick stick still prevails." Children are also sexually abused but are shy to tell anyone, as parents barely support them so they run away, he adds.
At the Edhi's shelter home for boys in Korangi No. 5, two children from Hijrat Colony and one from Mehmoodabad, who had run away fearing the punishment at madrrssas were handed back to their parents last week. A 10-year-old boy Saleem at a madressa in Sohrab Goth still waits to go back to his home.
Not all runaway children are lucky - and not all of them hail from Karachi. Ali Siraj, who ran away two months ago, belongs to Rajanpur in the Punjab and does not know the exact location of his house.
Arif, the in-charge of the shelter home, says that in case the children are unable to tell their proper address and information about their parents, their pictures are printed in the newspaper and the information is shared with the centres near their hometowns. "If their parents are not found, then we will send them back in the Edhi van in Ramzan to their hometowns."
Child rights activist Nazra Jahan of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child says that abuse at madressas results in negative character building of the child and instills fear and agitation."People are usually tight-lipped on this issue because it is quite sensitive, parents are illiterate and do not bother with the treatment of their children since they are getting, free food, a place to sleep and education."
Jahan says that while most of the corporal punishment in religious schools is restricted to beating them with a stick, in some places children are chained in a locked room. "The bill against corporal punishment has been pending in the Sindh Assembly for the past five years and it covers madrassas."
On the other hand, religious scholars such as Mufti Naeem denied that religious schools were involved in beating students. "It used to happen in the old system but no one does it any more," he said. "In fact, we have strictly ordered our madressas that if they are found to be involved, they would be removed from the board."
Published in The Express Tribune, March 11th, 2014.